They are calling for over 100 degrees this week but I will be up in the mountains. I don’t want to rush out of Portland first thing Sunday morning so this will be my shortest driving day. It is my first visit to Washington state and I am getting set-up for the long haul to Glacier National Park on Monday. I’m headed north though it would be faster to drive straight northeast to Spokane. I’m a tourist. I want to see Seattle, Mt. Rainer, and the Wenatchee National Forest.

I am warned about how bad the traffic can get along this stretch of I-5. As I approach Olympia, there is a radio notice about a traffic jam and I see on my GPS that yes indeed there an is hour delay. I abandon my plan to visit Seattle and pull off the interstate at the next exit without any idea where I am going. If it’s going to take forever, I’d rather take the long way through the backroads of Washington. Continue reading “Great American Road Trip- Part 6”

I spent the night in Albion, Idaho. There are signs pointing to this town on the interstate. It’s population: 297. What a perspective. Idaho feels so sparse and remote. I feel a bit vulnerable here out on the western frontier, 500 miles from anyone I know. I am at the mercy of the kindness of strangers.

I sit at an antique writing desk, preparing for what’s next: pack up, eat my breakfast, gas up in Declo, hit the road to Boise then on to Portland, Oregon- my destination. I am on this trip to spend time with my friend Steve and meet his wife Ramona. It’s been seventeen years since I last saw him.

I have terrible heat rash on my arms and neck. Living in Minnesota has made me much more sensitive to the sun and heat. South Dakota and Utah did me in. The blazing heat and intensity of the sun in Salt Lake City was too much. Continue reading “Great American Road Trip- Part 5”

I wake up at 5:20am for no damn reason. Five hours of sleep is better than none. This is the hard grind of driving all these miles and trying to get sightseeing in too. I am filthy- road grit, sunscreen, bites and bug spray, gross. I am gross. No energy to shower last night. The free wine didn’t help.

I am in a hotel room next to the ice machine with a view of the HVAC rooftop system. The sun is rising and I hear the womp, womp, womp of the hotel laundry room below. Pre-pay late arrival gets you the ‘worst’ room in the hotel. It’s clean and well put together so what do I care? On the road in couple hours anyway. Continue reading “Great American Road Trip- Part 4”

At 6:15am in Wall, SD, I sit outside my cabin on the patio drinking coffee and writing on the two-person bench. The sun rises quickly behind me and casts long shadows that stretch toward the nearly empty interstate. It’s going to be a hot one in the Badlands. Heat rash has become a normal part of venturing out in high summer for me. Heat exhaustion can creep up too. Sunscreen, bug spray, water, and my straw hat are a must today.

National parks, small towns, the highways and byways… the great outdoors… people think it’s flyover territory but I know better. There is so much life happening not on the internet- parks, museums, cafes, wilderness. This life is a little bit of heaven for me- a porch, a coffee, a sunrise, my journal. This is what vacation should feel like- adventure and exploration. Continue reading “Great American Road Trip- Part 3”